


“all along there was some invisible string”

by clickingkeyboards



Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Fluff, Misunderstandings, Red String of Fate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29387628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Lavinia Temple had decided that fate was bullshit.The decision came one night when she was very young, staring at the red string tied around her mother’s little finger, noticing how it did not connect to the red string on her father’s finger, and cursing the fact that she was seemingly the only person able to see the damn things.Lavinia Temple knows that Kitty and Beanie should be together like she knows that the sun rises in the east — the problem is getting them to see the metaphorical red string of fate that she can literally see.
Relationships: Katherine "Kitty" Freebody/Rebecca "Beanie" Martineau
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: Murder Most Unladylike Events





	“all along there was some invisible string”

Lavinia Temple had decided that fate was bullshit.

The decision came one night when she was very young, staring at the red string tied around her mother’s little finger, noticing how it did not connect to the red string on her father’s finger, and cursing the fact that she was seemingly the only person able to see the damn things.

She had worked out from studying cousins, family friends, and the older girls at Deepdean that the red strings appeared when somebody turned sixteen. However, if the younger of the pair of soulmates was not sixteen yet, it would merely be a band of red string tied around the little finger, only developing a long ream of red string pointing to their fated soulmate when the younger of the pair turned sixteen. However, there was another kind of string that seemed to show up right away when the two people met: the blue string, the sign of a platonic soulmate. Lavinia’s own string was blue, connected to George Mukherjee’s, and Daisy and Hazel’s were connected to each other.

There were many examples in her life of fate working as intended, and one notable example of fate being a bitch where karma was supposed to act.

Hazel Wong was not yet sixteen, but when she was, Lavinia had no doubt that her red string would point in the same direction as her own: towards Weston School, and onto the hand of Alexander Arcady. Daisy’s birthday had been celebrated in April and her red string attached comfortably to that of Amina El Maghrabi, whose birthday was in February.

However, no matter how hard she willed it, Patricia’s red string of fate did not connect to her father’s.

Shockingly, that was nothing compared to the levels of irritation that she felt the moment that they broke out into raucous cheering at midnight on Beanie Martineau’s birthday, and a red string had materialised on her finger, adjoining to Kitty’s as the two girls leapt up to hug each other.

_ Of course _ .

Beanie’s birthday was on the third of May, and Lavinia was prepared to commit herself to coming up with various methods of forcing them to realise their feelings for each other for the rest of the school year. It was more interesting than exams. 

One particular Monday, a week after the initial frustrating realisation, Lavinia was glaring at the world in general in their empty form as she brainstormed when Amina El Maghrabi walked in. “What did the wall do to you?”

She made a frustrated noise. “Do you know where Kitty and Beanie are?”

“Sitting on the grass outside,” Amina replied promptly, throwing herself down on Kitty’s bed. “Whispering to each other, as usual.”

Lavinia groaned. “Fucking… hell.”

“Language!” came the teasing reply from Amina, who was beaming. “So… I’m bored and Daisy and Hazel don’t come back from France until next Exeat weekend. Anything interesting?”

Daisy was legally dead and no longer a student at Deepdean, and Hazel had special dispensation to leave school for a week to ‘see a close relative’, which had left Lavinia pinned between the insufferable ought-to-be-a-couple and Amina gushing over Daisy’s letters. Lavinia was tired.

“There is something you can help me with, actually,” she blurted, and only realised after the words had left her mouth that she would have to say it without sounding like a mad person. “Um, I mean… I think that Kitty and Beanie like each other.”

“Thank goodness! Someone else who sees it!” Amina grinned. “You look shocked. I have  _ eyes _ , Lavinia.”

Recovering herself, she smiled and said, “That makes two of us. Now, do you have any ideas?”

“The problem is, we can’t do any of the classic things,” Amina said, leaning her head into her hands, elbows propped up on her knees. “If we lock them in a cupboard together, they’ll just chat.”

“Your pranking ways have failed you,” Lavinia teased. “Um… why don’t I tell Kitty that rumour has it that Beanie has a crush on her?”

“Nice!” Amina clapped her hands and grinned at Lavinia in a way that made it clear she had a plan. “I’ll do the same for Beanie? Maybe I could doodle ‘K plus B’ in Kitty’s workbook and let Beanie find it?”

In the back of her mind, Lavinia thought that it might be slightly cruel of them to trick their friends in this way, but she did not care. She couldn’t stand to see that stupid red string of fate hanging from their fingers without their knowledge a moment longer.

* * *

“What’s going on with Beanie?” Sophie Croke-Finchley asked at dinner, pointing her fork at the girl in question. She was avoiding all eye contact and fiddling with her plait, fixated firmly on her plate as she ate her potatoes. “Has someone poisoned her?”

“Not funny, Sophie,” Amina snapped before turning to Lavinia. “Have we messed up?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I thought for sure that our idea would work!”

“You don’t know that is hasn’t,” Lavinia pointed out. “Hey, Beans, can I talk to you?”

“Oh!” She looked up in alarm, avoiding Kitty’s curious eyes. “Yes, okay.”

As Lavinia got up and walked with Beanie out of the room, calling to the prefects that Beanie felt ill and that she was helping her, Amina heard Kitty mutter, “Why will she talk to stupid Lavinia but not me?”

* * *

“Why are you so upset?” Lavinia asked once they were sat down in their dorm. She really wasn’t good with people, but she supposed that she could at least try for poor Beanie.

She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Amina says that Kitty fancies me. You know, like… like how Alexander fancies Hazel.”

“Oh?” Lavinia said, trying to sound shocked. “Is that… a good thing? Or does it make you uncomfortable?”

“I don’t know…” Beanie’s voice creaked over her tears, and she took a deep breath. “I don’t know how Amina knew that was the perfect trick to play on me! I don’t know how she found out that I like Kitty! I haven’t told anyone! How did she know just the thing that would make me so sad?”

“Oh,  _ Beanie _ .” Awkwardly, Lavinia moved over to Beanie’s bed and sat down beside her, patting her shoulder. “How do you know that it’s a trick?”

“Because I asked how she knew that Kitty apparently liked me, and my voice went all wobbly and sad, and she said… she said, ‘I just do!’ and walked off, laughing.” Her voice was small and shrunk into the back of her throat, tangled up with her tears. “And I feel so  _ horrid _ about it. Why did Amina have to be so mean? She’s usually so lovely!”

Taking a measured breath to calm herself, Lavinia mentally berated Amina for her dramatic flair, which she would appreciate at any other time. “Well… maybe Amina wasn’t lying. Maybe she just… phrased it badly. Why don’t you ask Kitty?”

“No.”

“But—”

More forceful than Lavinia had ever heard her, Beanie said, “No, I will not!”

Lavinia was still floundering for how to respond when she noticed the red string around Beanie’s finger begin to shift and move as if her soulmate was scrambling for something. Just as she was going to try again to get Beanie to talk to Kitty, the girl in question burst into their dorm with a yell of, “Lavinia!”

She glared across the room. “Amina just explained everything to me. Now, clear off.”

“Why should I?” she asked, tightening her grip around Beanie’s shoulders.

“I need to ask Beanie something,” Kitty said, another meaning heavy in her voice.

It took Lavinia an embarrassing couple of seconds to understand. “ _ Oh _ . Yeah, I’ll make myself scarce.”

“Thank you,” Kitty said, surprisingly blushing to the tips of her ears. “Now…”

As Lavinia passed her on the way out the door, she whispered, “Have fun!”

Kitty’s squeak of embarrassment with laughter carried her all the way back to the dining hall.

* * *

Even though Kitty and Beanie hadn’t said a word, it wasn’t difficult to tell that something had changed between them. As Amina put it, anyone with working eyes could figure it out. Beanie was giddy and Kitty laughed loudly, utterly fixated on her best friend and saying not a word about handsome boys at all, instead calling Beanie pretty and lovely and ‘a treasure’ (which made the girl in question blush).

However, what made them absolutely sure was a conversation over breakfast a few days later. “Thank you for that silly not-trick you pulled, Amina,” Beanie said, very red in the face, and Lavinia grinned.

The red string tying Kitty and Beanie together was resting on the table between them, the loose string falling in the shape of a heart. 


End file.
